Nasim had somehow sensed Nikandr’s stone, even broken as it was, so in a way he didn’t doubt Nasim’s words, but they sounded like the ravings of a madman. It occurred to Nikandr that perhaps he’d seen it because it was broken. But that made no sense. And how could it have been blinding?
Nasim shook his head. “There was a hezhan.”
The pain began to ebb, and Nikandr let it as the snow began to melt against his cheek and hair. It was cold, but he was burning so badly he was glad for it.
“The havahezhan? The one that attacked my ship?”
He nodded, but that made no sense either. Nasim hadn’t even been on the island then.
“Lord Khalakovo!”
It was the desyatnik. The streltsi had returned.
Nasim jerked his head toward the sound, and the pain in Nikandr’s chest became white hot.
He opened his eyes, face buried in the snow, realizing he’d been knocked unconscious from the pain. He rolled onto his back, feeling an ache in his chest, but none of the feelings that had overwhelmed him moments ago.
Somewhere nearby, men were tracking slowly through the snow.
“Lord Khalakovo?”
They were close.
“Here,” he called weakly. “Over here!” he cried again, louder this time.
“To me!” the desyatnik called. “The Prince has fallen!”
They helped him to his feet and onto his pony, which they’d found and brought with them. His chest still hurt, but that was more from his muscles tensing like harp strings.
The desyatnik pulled his pony alongside Nikandr’s. He remained close, clearly worried Nikandr was going to tip over.
“You will not accompany me,” Nikandr told him. “Take your men and comb the countryside west of here. Send two along the road and the rest through the woods. Look for an Aramahn boy, eleven years old. If he’s found, bring him to the palotza. He is to come to no harm if it can be avoided.”
“My Lord Prince, if you were attacked-”
“I’m no longer in danger. He is on the run.”
The desyatnik nodded and ordered his men to spread out and sweep westward as Nikandr kicked his pony into action and headed for Radiskoye.
“It was just the boy?” Father asked.
Nikandr nodded. “Just him.”
The two of them were seated at the head of the long table in his audience room. Isaak stood by the fireplace, tending to the fire that acted as the room’s only source of light. Between Isaak and Father was a stand with Mother’s favorite rook, Yrfa. The bird was quiet; after a quick briefing from Nikandr, Mother had left to speak with Ranos in Volgorod and then to scan the grounds to the west to search for Nasim.
At a knock, Isaak opened the door and Jahalan entered. In the heavy shadows, with his sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, he looked as lean as death. “I was told there was trouble.”
Nikandr retold the tale he’d just told Father for Jahalan’s sake, everything from the point at which he’d left Atiana until the ride back.
“How could he have done this?” Father asked Jahalan.
Jahalan looked just as confused as Father. “You said a pain in your chest?”
“ Da,” Nikandr replied.
“And the feelings before the pain-euphoria, you said-had you experienced such a thing before?”
Nikandr shook his head. “ Nyet.”
Jahalan spread his hands, making it clear his thoughts on the subject were tenuous. “There are some among our people who feel euphoria when they become one with a place or a time.”
Father shook his head. “Explain.”
“The Aramahn hope to arrive at unity with the world around us, and most times, sometimes our entire lives, we fail to do so even once, but there are rare occasions, after long contemplation, after opening ourselves to the world, that we feel as though we have come to understand a thing for what it is, and in turn we believe that we are understood as well. Perhaps Nasim was feeling this as he looked down from that cliff. Perhaps Nikandr was somehow party to it.”
“And the pain?” Father asked.
Jahalan turned to Nikandr. “You said the boy looked discomforted on the eyrie.”
“To put it mildly,” Nikandr replied.
“I cannot explain how a connection between you might have been made, but assuming it was, it would make sense that you would feel both Nasim’s euphoria and his pain, not just one or the other.”
“I was feeling his thoughts?”
“Not exactly. They may have been your thoughts, just triggered by Nasim. He acted as tuning fork, but what you saw, you saw from your own perspective, your own experiences.”
These words rang true, Nikandr thought. The experience hadn’t felt foreign, only out of place and unexpected.
“The boy mentioned a hezhan,” Father interrupted, looking at Nikandr. “He said nothing else?”
“ Nyet.” Nikandr shook his head. “He heard the streltsi and ran. He must have been referring to the havahezhan.”
Father looked to Jahalan.
Jahalan pulled himself from contemplation and nodded. “I suppose it must be, but how could he have known? It was days before his arrival on the island.”
“Simple,” Father said. “He is Maharraht. They told him.”
“Nasim?” Jahalan considered the words. “I suppose he might be, but I doubt very much he would be in the company of Ashan if he were.”
“It is the only explanation.” Father said. “He traveled to the very spot from which the havahezhan was summoned, the place the Maharraht had gathered. It must be so.”
“As you say, but it doesn’t answer the more important question. How could he have done such a thing to your son?”
As they considered the question, Nikandr remembered the dream from the cliff. “There was a city,” he said, almost breathlessly. He stared at Jahalan, knowing he’d seen a vision of a place, a city that in all likelihood no man from the Grand Duchy had ever stepped foot within. “I was speaking to a woman, Sariya, and she mentioned another, a man name Muqallad. Have you heard of them?”
Jahalan shook his head. “I have not. You say it was a dream?”
“A dream, but very real. It felt like something Nasim had seen.” The words felt false. The one from the dream was a man grown… How could the memories have been Nasim’s?
“You may have seen one of your past lives,” Jahalan said.
Father snorted.
Jahalan looked hurt, but he held Nikandr’s eye.
Nearby, the rook flapped its wings and clicked its beak several times. It launched itself forward and landed on the back of the chair opposite Nikandr. “The boy is nowhere to be found.”
Father bristled. “Then we must-”
“Still your words, husband. I bring news. Ranos is sending a full sotni to cover the road to Iramanshah. With the fifty men we’ve sent in addition to the ten from Nikandr, it will be enough. If the boy can be found, he will be.”
“And Ashan?” Father asked.
“The Braga is in flight already. We will ask the mahtar for permission to speak with Ashan. If they agree, he will be brought to Volgorod, to the Oprichni’s house.”
Father’s gaze turned steely as he studied the rook. He glanced at Jahalan, shaking his head. “We should play no games of diplomacy with Iramanshah. The dukes will be arriving tomorrow.”
“I know who arrives on the morrow, husband, but there is little enough to present the mahtar with, and nothing of Ashan.”
“He is the boy’s keeper!” Father said.
“And what will that mean to them?”
Father fumed, but he knew Mother was right. It was forbidden to take the Aramahn by force unless laws had been broken. Even then, the Palotza was to present their evidence to the mahtar to let them decide if taking an Aramahn was warranted.
“What if they don’t agree?”
The rook stretched its neck back and released a series of harsh caws.
“Then it will be dealt with.” It pecked at t
he table and then winged back to its perch. “I have much to do before the sun rises.”
The bird shivered, the orange glow of the fire playing against its slick black coat, and then it was still.
Father asked to speak with Jahalan alone, and this time Nikandr didn’t mind.
“Nischka?” Father said as he reached the door.
Nikandr turned.
“Tell no one of this.”
“Of course, Father.”
And then he left.
He was bone tired, but he couldn’t go to sleep just yet. He had to deal with Atiana before she told anyone about what happened on their ride. He was worried that she’d already told her sisters, but there was a chance she would have kept quiet about it, at least these last few hours, and that she was cool enough that she would listen to reason.
He took a small lamp and walked to the far side of the palotza, to the bath house. It was empty and cold and dark. Beyond the massive tub in the center of the room he opened the door to a small closet, reached beyond the stacks of towels on the lowest shelf, pressing a certain space along the wood. He heard a click and the shelves swung inward. He stepped into the frigidly cold passage and closed the door behind him.
The passageway was lined with bricks, but as he traveled lower, he was walking through the body of the mountain itself. He knew these passages well, though even he-who’d scoured them whenever he’d had a chance as a child-didn’t know all of them. He knew enough, however, to make it to a similar closet in the wing where the Vostromas and their retinue were staying. He reached it after several brisk minutes of walking; then he left and padded down the tall hallway toward Atiana’s room.
After reaching it, he knocked on her door softly.
He heard nothing inside.
He tried again, louder.
Further down the hall, a door swung open, and Nikandr’s heart leapt out of his chest. A woman leaned out into the hall-Mileva or Ishkyna, he couldn’t tell which. Her hair was pulled up into a sleeping bonnet, and she wore a thick nightdress, but her feet were bare. A curious look came over her when she recognized him, like a cat catching a mouse it hadn’t known was there. Then the look was gone, and she padded toward him over the cold tile floor.
“My dear Nikandr,”she said, her words soft,“have you become so smitten with Atiana that you feel you must steal into her room in the middle of the night? Is she such a treasure?” Ishkyna.
“She is a jewel beyond measure,” Nikandr replied, just as softly.
One of Ishkyna’s delicate eyebrows rose. “A jewel you wish to polish before it’s been given to you properly?”
“A jewel I would look upon, nothing more.”
She stared at his shoulder, perhaps at the dust he’d collected on his way there through the hidden passages. He waited for her to speak, refusing to rise to the bait.
“This is highly irregular. What would Aunt Katerina think?”
“She would frown, but you, I think, will not.”
“And how can you be so sure?”
“There is little harm in a talk between a man and a woman two days before their marriage.”
She took a step forward. She was close enough to touch now. “That depends on what happens after the words are done, Nischka.” She took another half-step forward. “Words can lead to many things, can they not?”
He could smell the alcohol on her breath, the powder in her hair. The tight line of her lips arced in a meaningful smile as her eyes closed once. Her nipples stood out, her breasts rising in the cold air of the hall. She was beautiful, as Atiana was, and he found his throat tightening at the thought of where, indeed, words could lead. He had always thought of these three sisters as girls, children, but this was no girl standing before him. Ishkyna was a woman grown.
“I only wish for a word, Ishkyna.”
She glanced at Atiana’s door, then her head tilted toward her room, and finally her gaze returned to Nikandr, daring him to take this one step further. When it was clear he would not, she took a half step back and said, “Pity,” and then she turned the handle of Atiana’s room. It swung open soundlessly as Ishkyna swept back to her room and closed her door behind her.
CHAPTER 13
Atiana heard the click of a door opening. She was so tired she thought she was in her own bed within Palotza Galostina, and she fell immediately back to sleep. But then she heard a single word being spoken, soft but clear- “Pity”-and soon thereafter came the faint sound of a door closing.
She sat up, saw the silhouette of a man, his back to her, the light from the lamp he held wavering over the walls and ceiling.
“Who’s there?”
The floorboards creaked as Nikandr turned. “May we speak?” he asked softly.
She shivered though she was not cold. When they had touched stones, standing outside the palotza walls, she had felt the disease gnawing away at him, slowly but surely. She had touched stones with others and felt similar things, but it had been so strong with Nikandr. It had felt for a moment as if she had had the wasting, and it had shaken her.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Atiana, I merely wish to explain.”
“There’s little enough to explain. You lied.”
He nodded. “I did, to everyone else, but I chose to share it with you.” He sat on the edge of her bed, his face growing worried. “The Khalakovos need this marriage, as does your family.”
She felt a lump forming in her throat. She understood what he’d done, even shortly after touching stones. What he failed to understand is how she might react to it. To him, this marriage was a burden, and he probably felt she shared his opinion.
“It would be foolish,” he continued, “to jeopardize that by telling your father of something that cannot be changed. No one has to know. In another week, Council will be over, and they’ll all be gone. I’ll reveal everything once it’s safe.”
“Safe from what? Why hide it in the first place?”
He stared at the lamp he still held in one hand. “I thought I could cure it. I thought, somehow, I’d be able to find a way. There are those…”
“What, that live with the disease? They all succumb eventually, Nikandr.”
“I know.” He stared at her, his eyes brimming with emotion.
“You must have known all this. Victania…” She stopped, because she realized what Nikandr had been hoping to do. He had hoped to cure himself, true, but he was desperate to save Victania.
It was touching, his connection to his sister, but also selfish. There were two families to consider in his decision.
But that wasn’t what hurt the worst. Atiana had come to Khalakovo, despite the constant words of her sisters, with hope-hope that Nikandr would accept her; hope that they could come to love one another; hope that she would one day bear his children, and that they would grow to be strong. She didn’t want a marriage like Mileva, who shared with her husband a cold tolerance for one another. She didn’t want to live like Ishkyna, who moved among beds as rapidly as she could, as if that could somehow fill the life her cruel husband drained from her. She didn’t even want a marriage like Mother and Father, where one took knee for the other. She wanted respect. She wanted love. She wanted passion.
Perhaps that had been a foolish list of demands with which to land on Khalakovo’s shores. Perhaps she should be happy that she knew him well, and that he would most likely come to tolerate her. But she was who she was, and she could see clearly now that she would take second seat to Nikandr’s other women: his mother, his sister, even the Aramahn whore he was rumored to be in love with.
“Tell me, Nikandr, would you do for me as you do for Victania?”
The answer was plain in his eyes.
“Then perhaps there is no need for marriage. Perhaps our fathers will allow the documents to live without the compact of blood.”
“You know they won’t.”
“ Nyet. Perhaps you’re right.” How foolish she’d been, to think that he would welcome her. “Go,
” she said. “I’ll not reveal your precious secret.” Her resolve finally broke, and tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.
He stared at her with a confused look on his face.
Rather than let him stare at her, she lay down, facing away from him. “Go!”
After a moment, the shadows being thrown around the room waved wildly, and he left without another word.
Then, alone once more, she allowed herself to cry.
Atiana stood before a tall mirror and took a deep breath while her handmaid pulled mercilessly at her corset strings. Mileva stood next to her in the same state of dress while Ishkyna sat on the bed, cross-legged, wearing only her shift.
Her future sister, Victania, stood nearby, watching with a critical eye. It was early in the morning, and the Grand Duke was not set to arrive until after noon, and still Victania’s powdered wig and white makeup were impeccable. One would think that the wasting would make her appear weak, but in fact it was just the opposite; though she was frail physically, she had the air of a woman who had taken the disease by the throat, refusing to grant it an inch. It was something Atiana might admire if Victania didn’t treat her as if she were a symptom of the wasting.
Victania stepped between Atiana and the mirror, looking more closely at her hair. She reached out, checking the length at her ears, and it was all Atiana could do not to pull away.
Victania’s mouth pursed. “You won’t be infected,” she said as she continued to draw Atiana’s hair along the side of her cheeks.
“I wasn’t thinking that I would.”
Victania’s sharp eyes focused on hers. “ Nyet?”
Atiana remained silent, a surge of jealousy rising up within her. She could never hope to compete with Victania for Nikandr’s love.
Victania moved behind her and checked the back. “I’ll send for the barber,” she said, dropping Atiana’s hair as if it had insulted her.
The door to the room opened, and Yvanna Khalakovo, Ranos’s wife, stepped inside, dressed as impeccably as her sister.
“Khazabyirsk has arrived,” she said to Victania, “and they’re flying the wounded flag.”
Victania looked sternly between the girls and Yvanna. “They won’t be ready in time.”
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